This silly story about the "master and slave" terminology suddenly reminded me of the extreme anti-sex reactions of some of the Victorians who did wacky things like put covers on the legs of tables, so there wouldn't be any inadvertent viewing of "legs".

Originally Posted by mandelbrot5

This silly story about the "master and slave" terminology suddenly reminded me of the extreme anti-sex reactions of some of the Victorians who did wacky things like put covers on the legs of tables, so there wouldn't be any inadvertent viewing of "legs".

Keep in mind, though, that even as the Victorians stumbled (or at least the upper classes did, our modern popular image of Victorian times is greatly distorted by the fact that the common accounts focus on particular subgroups) over thoughts sexual, they were matter-of-fact frank about matters of race and class that send modern Americans and Europeans into a fit.

Ironically, in terms of our theoretical sexual attitudes, we live in an environment that could be described as simply the Victorian pattern in reverse: what was once theoretically forbidden is now theoretically compulsory.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Keep in mind, though, that even as the Victorians stumbled (or at least the upper classes did, our modern popular image of Victorian times is greatly distorted by the fact that the common accounts focus on particular subgroups) over thoughts sexual, they were matter-of-fact frank about matters of race and class that send modern Americans and Europeans into a fit.

i'd like to see some of this matter-of-fact frankness.... any examples or sources?


TK

I referred to, and was taken to task for, the unprecedented party discipline the Republicans are showing to make basic changes in American life with a razor thin majority. The following column elaborates on this far more effectively than I ever could have.


GOP pulled no punches in struggle for Medicare bill

November 27, 2003

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement







During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.



Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

The bill providing prescription drug benefits under Medicare would have been easily defeated by Republicans save for the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history. Although President Bush had to be awakened to collect the last two votes, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Majority Whip Roy Blunt made it that close. ''DeLay the Hammer'' on Saturday morning was hammering fellow conservatives.

Last Friday night, Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania hosted a dinner at the Hunan restaurant on Capitol Hill for 30 Republicans opposed to the bill. They agreed on a scaled-down plan devised by Toomey and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. It would cover only seniors without private prescription drug insurance, while retaining the bill's authorization of private health savings accounts. First, they had to defeat their president and their congressional leadership.

They almost did. There were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to House members.

Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him.

Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a ''no'' vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more.

Feeney held firm against the bill. So did DeMint and Akin. And so did Nick Smith. A steadfast party regular, he has pioneered private Social Security accounts. But he could not swallow the unfunded liabilities in this Medicare bill. The 69-year-old former dairy farmer this week was still reeling from the threat to his son. ''It was absolutely too personal,'' he told me. Over the telephone from Michigan on Saturday, Brad Smith urged his father to vote his conscience.

However, the leadership was picking off Republican dissenters, including eight of 13 House members who signed a Sept. 17 letter authored by Toomey pledging to support only a Medicare bill very different from the measure on the floor Saturday. That raised the Republican total to 216, still two votes short.

The president took to the phone, but at least two Republicans turned him down. Finally, Bush talked Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona (a ninth defector from the Toomey letter) and Butch Otter of Idaho -- into voting ''yes.'' They were warned that if this measure failed, the much more liberal Democratic bill would be brought up and passed.

The conservative Club for Growth's Steve Moore, writing to the organization's directors and founders, said defeat of the Medicare bill ''would have been a shot across the bow at the Republican establishment that conservatives are sick of the spending splurge that is going on inside Washington these last few years.''

Hammering the conservatives to prevent that may have been only a short-term triumph.


Yet this sad story still illustrates the paradox of where we are today. On the one hand, the leadership used shameless 4T methods. On the other hand, they used them to pass a bill that violates some of their purportedly most cherished principles (it's a budget-buster), simply to have Bush claim that, as he told us in 2000, he has "led," as Clinton didn't. (He has led us to financial and foreign catastrophe, but who cares about that, right?) In a sense I suppose this is how the civil war was brought about; two decades of ideological posturing came home to roost. In this case I think it will be a series of real problems that does it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

David Kaiser '47

Thankfully Miserable

Originally Posted by David Kaiser

I referred to, and was taken to task for, the unprecedented party discipline the Republicans are showing to make basic changes in American life with a razor thin majority. The following column elaborates on this far more effectively than I ever could have.

I was pretty ticked off when Clinton raised taxes after having promised a "middle class tax cut" during his campaign for the White House in 1992. But I cheered when he championed NAFTA and GATT, when he finally signed the thrice vetoed Welfare Reform Act of 1996, and when he generally kept his liberal nose out of the economy in the 1990s.

Aside from being impeached for lying to a grand jury, fined for lying to a federal judge, and leaving the Osama/Saddam mess for somebody else to clean up, Clinton wasn't all that bad a president.

But for the life of me I cannot understand what's the big beef you liberals have with this Bush guy. Back in July, David Kaiser posted his true feelings for "that man" in the White House:

• "Leaving aside my specific feelings about President Bush and his policies, I think his Administration is contributing to this enormously by failing to make the slightest gesture to the plurality of Americans who voted against him on ANY significant issue."

Bush is, in your words, seeking a "dictatorship of the plutocracy." I then asked very simply, "Of the following attempts by Bush to establish a 'new tone in Washington,' which do you find offensive and 'failing to make the slightest gesture to the plurality of Americans'? "

In 2001, Bush:

• Abandoning School Vouchers, a campaign promise, Bush instead signed the Ted Kennedy profered "No Child eft Behind Act" education bill
  
  Deftly responded to the horrific attack on the World Trade Center, drawing huge approval ratings and cheers even from the left. No attack has occured since.

In 2002, Bush:

• Signed the Campaign Finance Reform bill, even though a majority of Republicans in Congress voted against it.
  
  Signed the huge Farm bill, a $190 billion, 10-year monstrosity that increases subsidies by almost 100%.
  
  Enacted Steel Tariffs in an effort to court various trade organizations and the United Steelworkers of America, and again even though a majority of Republicans are against tariffs.

In 2003, Bush:

• Signed an Extension of Unemployment Benefits, twice.
  
  Successfully engineeed an impressive "regime change" in Iraq, which was supported by a clear majority of Democrats according to every single poll.
  
  Signed The United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act H.R. 1298. The bill language authorizes $15 billion with an equal flow of $3 billion every year for the next five years and provide up to $1 billion in 2004 to the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria.

Now add to that list the biggest increase in the size of the federal government since LBJ, and I've got to wonder what in the world are these liberals so pissed off about?

I mean, get real, you folks ought to be giving moocho thanks for the Bush guy or get off the frickin' liberal fence and start callin' yourselves conservatives!

Originally Posted by David Kaiser

Yet this sad story still illustrates the paradox of where we are today. On the one hand, the leadership used shameless 4T methods. On the other hand, they used them to pass a bill that violates some of their purportedly most cherished principles (it's a budget-buster), simply to have Bush claim that, as he told us in 2000, he has "led," as Clinton didn't. (He has led us to financial and foreign catastrophe, but who cares about that, right?) In a sense I suppose this is how the civil war was brought about; two decades of ideological posturing came home to roost. In this case I think it will be a series of real problems that does it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

You're not happy at all, you're miserable.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

I referred to, and was taken to task for, the unprecedented party discipline the Republicans are showing to make basic changes in American life with a razor thin majority. The following column elaborates on this far more effectively than I ever could have.


GOP pulled no punches in struggle for Medicare bill

November 27, 2003

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Advertisement







During 14 years in the Michigan Legislature and 11 years in Congress, Rep. Nick Smith had never experienced anything like it. House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, in the wee hours last Saturday morning, pressed him to vote for the Medicare bill. But Smith refused. Then things got personal.



Smith, self term-limited, is leaving Congress. His lawyer son Brad is one of five Republicans seeking to replace him from a GOP district in Michigan's southern tier. On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote. When he still declined, fellow Republican House members told him they would make sure Brad Smith never came to Congress. After Nick Smith voted no and the bill passed, Duke Cunningham of California and other Republicans taunted him that his son was dead meat.

The bill providing prescription drug benefits under Medicare would have been easily defeated by Republicans save for the most efficient party whip operation in congressional history. Although President Bush had to be awakened to collect the last two votes, Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Majority Whip Roy Blunt made it that close. ''DeLay the Hammer'' on Saturday morning was hammering fellow conservatives.

Last Friday night, Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania hosted a dinner at the Hunan restaurant on Capitol Hill for 30 Republicans opposed to the bill. They agreed on a scaled-down plan devised by Toomey and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana. It would cover only seniors without private prescription drug insurance, while retaining the bill's authorization of private health savings accounts. First, they had to defeat their president and their congressional leadership.

They almost did. There were only 210 yes votes after an hour (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to House members.

Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures. Major contributors warned Rep. Jim DeMint they would cut off funding for his Senate race in South Carolina. A Missouri state legislator called Rep. Todd Akin to threaten a primary challenge against him.

Intense pressure, including a call from the president, was put on freshman Rep. Tom Feeney. As speaker of the Florida House, he was a stalwart for Bush in his state's 2000 vote recount. He is the Class of 2002's contact with the House leadership, marking him as a future party leader. But now, in those early morning hours, Feeney was told a ''no'' vote would delay his ascent into leadership by three years -- maybe more.

Feeney held firm against the bill. So did DeMint and Akin. And so did Nick Smith. A steadfast party regular, he has pioneered private Social Security accounts. But he could not swallow the unfunded liabilities in this Medicare bill. The 69-year-old former dairy farmer this week was still reeling from the threat to his son. ''It was absolutely too personal,'' he told me. Over the telephone from Michigan on Saturday, Brad Smith urged his father to vote his conscience.

However, the leadership was picking off Republican dissenters, including eight of 13 House members who signed a Sept. 17 letter authored by Toomey pledging to support only a Medicare bill very different from the measure on the floor Saturday. That raised the Republican total to 216, still two votes short.

The president took to the phone, but at least two Republicans turned him down. Finally, Bush talked Reps. Trent Franks of Arizona (a ninth defector from the Toomey letter) and Butch Otter of Idaho -- into voting ''yes.'' They were warned that if this measure failed, the much more liberal Democratic bill would be brought up and passed.

The conservative Club for Growth's Steve Moore, writing to the organization's directors and founders, said defeat of the Medicare bill ''would have been a shot across the bow at the Republican establishment that conservatives are sick of the spending splurge that is going on inside Washington these last few years.''

Hammering the conservatives to prevent that may have been only a short-term triumph.


Yet this sad story still illustrates the paradox of where we are today. On the one hand, the leadership used shameless 4T methods. On the other hand, they used them to pass a bill that violates some of their purportedly most cherished principles (it's a budget-buster), simply to have Bush claim that, as he told us in 2000, he has "led," as Clinton didn't. (He has led us to financial and foreign catastrophe, but who cares about that, right?) In a sense I suppose this is how the civil war was brought about; two decades of ideological posturing came home to roost. In this case I think it will be a series of real problems that does it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

David Kaiser '47

The Boomers are in control in the House now. In the Senate, the Silent are still setting the tone, barely.

We haven't seen anything yet.

Originally Posted by TrollKing

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Keep in mind, though, that even as the Victorians stumbled (or at least the upper classes did, our modern popular image of Victorian times is greatly distorted by the fact that the common accounts focus on particular subgroups) over thoughts sexual, they were matter-of-fact frank about matters of race and class that send modern Americans and Europeans into a fit.

i'd like to see some of this matter-of-fact frankness.... any examples or sources?


TK

Victorian racists atttitudes weren't even hidden, they permeated the popular press and political discussion. Class-based sentiments were just as open, it was considered nothing out-of-toward to say pubically that the upper classes were such because of inherent superiority, they didn't even try to hide it.

Keep in mind that our modern popular image of the Victorian Age is based on fictional and idealized accounts of the upper middle class, which was the most 'victorian' of the social levels. The aristocracy was quite unrestrained in attitude, in fact the aristocratic libertine was a well known figure in those times.

As for the lower classes, they were quite different. Entertainments were rough and often quite bawdy, marriage was a very weak institution in the early Victorian Age among the lower social classes. Drunkeness, drug addiction, and prostitution were open and in some quarters accepted facts of public life, especially in the early Victorian.

One of the remarkable things about the period, along with the oddly selective puritanical impulses of the upper middle class, was the degree to which enormous social problems were gradually, and effectively, tamed, as the years went by.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by TrollKing

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Keep in mind, though, that even as the Victorians stumbled (or at least the upper classes did, our modern popular image of Victorian times is greatly distorted by the fact that the common accounts focus on particular subgroups) over thoughts sexual, they were matter-of-fact frank about matters of race and class that send modern Americans and Europeans into a fit.

i'd like to see some of this matter-of-fact frankness.... any examples or sources?


TK

Victorian racists atttitudes weren't even hidden, they permeated the popular press and political discussion. Class-based sentiments were just as open, it was considered nothing out-of-toward to say pubically that the upper classes were such because of inherent superiority, they didn't even try to hide it.

Keep in mind that our modern popular image of the Victorian Age is based on fictional and idealized accounts of the upper middle class, which was the most 'victorian' of the social levels. The aristocracy was quite unrestrained in attitude, in fact the aristocratic libertine was a well known figure in those times.

As for the lower classes, they were quite different. Entertainments were rough and often quite bawdy, marriage was a very weak institution in the early Victorian Age among the lower social classes. Drunkeness, drug addiction, and prostitution were open and in some quarters accepted facts of public life, especially in the early Victorian.

One of the remarkable things about the period, along with the oddly selective puritanical impulses of the upper middle class, was the degree to which enormous social problems were gradually, and effectively, tamed, as the years went by.

I can confirm the libertine behavior of the aristocracy. Visit your local web engine, and scan for Lillie Langtry's relationship with the Prince of Wales. Lillie was a parson's daughter turned 'professional beauty' (a prototype of the modern supermodel) who had a semi-open relationship with the Prince. Lillie later turned actress. Along with Jenny Lind and Sarah Bernhardt, Lillie might be counted as an early example of a media super celebrity. Scandals in the royal family of England are not truely new.

I'd search for the 'corn laws' as an example of how "enormous social problems were gradually, and effectively, tamed, as the years went by." About the time of the potato famine, the old landed gentry owned the land, and made profit out of high prices for agricultural goods. This profit was maximized by outlawing import of food from North America. This was really unpopular during the famine, and created considerable stress even during normal times. The power of the House of Lords had to be beaten down in order to get Great Britain sufficient food at low enough prices to feed its people and avoid open revolt.

At the same time, the people were moving from agricultural to industrial employment. Newly made industrialists were getting rich, and seeking the political pull necessary to get richer, to integrate the industrial processes into the culture. On mainland Europe, things teetered on the border of revolution. Many of the nobility clung to power and wealth too long. In England, the progressives managed to repeal the corn laws and give sufficient ground to the industrial population that the revolution never quite happened. Thus, the House of Lords still exists in England, while the old nobility is quite powerless most everywhere else.

In the States, we fought a Civil War over slavery, increased power to the federal government to enable industrial growth, and settle the question of which culture (north or south) would expand into the west. The Victorians in England were struggling over similar issues, with the rural conservative aristocrats giving ground to the urban progressive parliamentarians. In England, they avoided coming to open blows, but there were some tense times.

Today's red / blue divide is the modern version of the rural aristocratic conservative against urban democratic progressive conflict. Alas, the urban democratic progressives are in dire need of a champion with vision. I would add that the international aspect of this conflict, between the industrialized countries and the still developing (still very agricultural) countries, should be of note.

Originally Posted by yo

I mean, get real, you folks ought to be giving moocho thanks for the Bush guy or get off the frickin' liberal fence and start callin' yourselves conservatives!

I am a conservative when it comes to fiscal matters.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Today's red / blue divide is the modern version of the rural aristocratic conservative against urban democratic progressive conflict. Alas, the urban democratic progressives are in dire need of a champion with vision. I would add that the international aspect of this conflict, between the industrialized countries and the still developing (still very agricultural) countries, should be of note.

Everything you said was true until this part. This isn't the Victorian Age over again, that phase of the West's history is over and done. The Red/Blue divide is only coincidentally rural/urban, it's much more of a religious and nationalist divide.

I suppose it depends on what the next Big Thing turns out to be. If It is terrorism related, we will date the Fourth Turning from 9-11. If It is not, we will date the Catalyst as whatever It is.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Today's red / blue divide is the modern version of the rural aristocratic conservative against urban democratic progressive conflict. Alas, the urban democratic progressives are in dire need of a champion with vision. I would add that the international aspect of this conflict, between the industrialized countries and the still developing (still very agricultural) countries, should be of note.

Everything you said was true until this part. This isn't the Victorian Age over again, that phase of the West's history is over and done. The Red/Blue divide is only coincidentally rural/urban, it's much more of a religious and nationalist divide.

Well, I'd just have to disagree, and ask you to look into the politics behind the English Civil War, American Revolution, and US Civil War. Western Civilization (and especially the Anglo-American subculture) went through a very painful transition from a rural aristocratic religious culture to an urban democratic secular one. We're not done yet. It is true that every one of S&H's crises was focused on different issues. The rural - urban transition is much too big to be solved in a single period of upheaval. The most dire and pressing problems of Victoria's time were solved in Victoria's time, but the division of wealth between Victorian mother countries and their colonies have left large echoes alive in today's headlines. There is much left to do.

There are common themes in history, and lessons that might be learned. Conservatives of any given era will see nothing wrong with privilege and wealth, and will seek to maintain existing power structures and advantages. Progressives and radicals will see death, poverty, unfair distribution of political power, and human rights violations. In the end, progress is inevitable. Wrongs will be righted. Privileges will be usurped. Cultures will adjust to the reality of newer technology. By the time the history books get written, the progressives are written up as heroes with vision, while conservative defenses of the divine right of kings, slavery, autocratic authority and isolationism are shunned even by future generations of conservatives.

I don't see much in the way of progressives with vision in the United States. I hope they come. Still, we are the single nation that benefits most from the status quo. We may make the mistake of not seeing a world in pain, and attempting to maintain what is. I hope not, but Crisis has always resulted in war, and there is generally a conservative nation attempting to fight the future. It could be us. Maybe not. Even Dubya has come to see the wisdom of nation building. We shall see.

S&H say a lot about when crises occur, and the mechanics of how cultures change, but they say little about patterns in the issues. They are conservatives at heart, and don't want to see that the progressives and radicals drive crises. This doesn't mean 20th Century liberalism based on the New Deal will continue unchanged. We need a radical new vision, not FDR regurgitated. I do anticipate a radical political realignment. I do anticipate more changes in the upcoming crisis than anyone anticipated before the crisis. Unfortunately, the need for a reinvented world isn't clearly obvious yet. The instinct to cling to the past yet triumphs. The cusp of 3T / 4T is not yet past.

Another example of the Twilight Zone nature of our current cusp time is the Gulf War, where we still have a smoldering situation, but are not retreating like we did from Somalia or Beirut; nor are we going in gangbusters like I would have expected. On September 12, 2001 I thought it likely that we would wake up, unlikely that we would go back to sleep. That we would toss and turn with eyes half open was not even on my radar screen.

Originally Posted by HopefulCynic68

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Today's red / blue divide is the modern version of the rural aristocratic conservative against urban democratic progressive conflict. Alas, the urban democratic progressives are in dire need of a champion with vision. I would add that the international aspect of this conflict, between the industrialized countries and the still developing (still very agricultural) countries, should be of note.

Everything you said was true until this part. This isn't the Victorian Age over again, that phase of the West's history is over and done. The Red/Blue divide is only coincidentally rural/urban, it's much more of a religious and nationalist divide.

I agree the divide isn't urban/rural, it's urban/non-urban. The religous and nationalistic overlays are pretty close. One you hit the suburbs, the politics and social norms take a pretty sharp turn to the right. That also goes for taxes, which the non-urbanites feel they pay to the urbanities.

If the urbanites ever decide to exercise their conservative tendancies, and start to actively block farm programs and other non-urban handouts, the resulting pandamonium would be worth observing ... from a l-o-n-g distance.

Originally Posted by David '47 Redux

If the urbanites ever decide to exercise their conservative tendancies, and start to actively block farm programs and other non-urban handouts, the resulting pandamonium would be worth observing ... from a l-o-n-g distance.

BRING 'EM ON! :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Sean (responding to your 11/25 question),

Writing for the Hoover Institution, Lee Harris is hardly a reliable interpreter of Marx and his faults.

I, at least, have the credentials of a former communist, a person who came to that persuasion not out of intellectual pursuit but out of sincere desire to actually change the practice of the US government with regard to Viet Nam, civil rights and other issues of the Sixties (I was born in '47).

Being charitable, I'm willing to accept Harris' thesis that immiseration of the masses is the most fundamental driving force of social revolution. And, I'll buy Baron's notion (of which I have no first hand knowledge) that immiseration has become global in scale. Actually, I think Lenin DID point this out some 50 years before Baron (the Monthly Review was/is notoriously anti-Leninist), and I disagree with Harris that Lenin's summation was derived as some sort of scheme to get around the "buying off" of the industrial working class in advanced capitalist countries. First off, Lenin only talked about a top strata of workers being bought off, not the vast majority; the others, though comfortable, were still considered to have positive, revolutionary aspirations at their core. Second, Lenin lived and organized in Russia, then the most advanced "third world" nation (though no one conceived of the concept at that time). As such, Russia experienced immiseration and the workers (along with the peasants) did revolt. I think Lenin deserves credit for recognizing that imperialism would impoverish (was impoverishing) the third world, a fact that was fully proven by the subsequent unfolding of the 20th century.

But the main point is the appropriate critique of Marx and Marxism, which Lee does not understand. Here's what Marx failed to appreciate: the mode of production of humans changes in given situations, resulting in a transformation of class structure and, thus, the nature of class struggle.

Marx wrote as the Industrial Revolution reached toward its nadir. Certainly, he was aware of the earlier transformation from agriculture to mass production and the still earlier transformation from hunting/gathering to agriculture. But, nevertheless, he believed the industrial epoch would somehow continue indefinitely, albeit in a socialist rather than capitalist format.

Alvin Toffler (The Third Wave, 1979) was the first to point out that mass production (industrialism) was giving way to a new mode (still not clearly named, but "service-based production" will do). Marvin Harris (anthropologist, U of FL) was the first to sum up why such changes take place (Cannibals and Kings).

Marvin Harris' insight rests in his grasp of the relationship between human production, reproduction and natural resources. He said that in any given market with an established mode of production (whatever it is), the steady success of human reproduction (and the resulting increase in population) will force humans to intensify production to sustain whatever standard of living to which they've become accustomed. Intensified production leads to intensified resource consumption, and, eventually, whatever resources are key to that particular mode of production become depleted (ie, in hunting & gathering, the big game is killed off; in agriculture; all the good land is in production; in mass production, energy resources are over consumed).

Once key resources are depleted, humans have no choice but to (1) accept a lower standard of living, (2) accept some decimation of their numbers (starvation, disease) or (3) discover/invent a new mode of production that relies on different and still plentiful resources.

[In earlier times, a fourth option existed. Hunter-gathers could move on to a new region over the mountains where no humans yet lived. Agricultural societies could conquer neighboring regions. Industrialism could colonize. Now, however, we've reached a new stage where all the world, increasingly, is one market, and there is no place else to go or to conquer.]

Had Marx understood this, he would never have considered industrialism with its huge increase in population and voracious consumption of energy (and its equally voracious destruction of water, air and habitat) the last of our modes of production.

Since about 1950, we humans have been creating a new mode of production, service-based production, whose key resource is human beings, particularly, our capacity to size up and design services to support each other (that's a great oversimplification, but we have to keep this short). The good thing about this is that we no longer need to have huge numbers of consumptive people to sustain the system (as was/is the case with mass production). Thus, we have the potential to re-establish control over human population and, on that basis, reverse the immiseration of the world.

However, before we ever get anywhere close to controlling population growth (and, thus, natural resource depletion and destruction), we have to solve the global political crisis that now controls our destiny.

This is where Marxism, as a science, comes back to relevance. Just as classes were real in the agricultural and industrial ages, classes remain real in the new epoch of service-based production. But the new mode creates a new class. Not captitalist or proletarian (though they still exist), the new class is the service-providing class (operating sometimes in corporations, small businesses or individually). This class remains a small (but growing) minority of the world's people, but its interests point the way to our world's future. And, its eventual organization for pursuit if its own interests will be the beginning of the fourth turning's revolutionary transformation.

Ironically, at the top of the service-providing class is the financial services industry (aka, the finance capitalists -- Lenin's label). During the industrial age (as Lenin consistently pointed out), this class was firmly aligned with the mass producing, industrialist class. But with the demise of industrialism (due to overpopulation and energy depletion, as manifest in massive energy price increases over the last century), this strata's strategic interest departs from the old mass producers, particularly the energy industry -- the most fundamental of all the mass producing industries.

To me, the task of current day revolutionaries is to promote and popularlize this split (the most obvious current example is the split between European financial interests and the energy-based Bush administration). I propose doing this by pressing the demand that the global financial services industry impose a self-tax on all electronic commercial transactions to make those ample funds available to develop the global service economy through NGO-corporate partnerships under the advice and consent of a new, global citizens authority.

If this approach interests you, please check out www.globalcitizencenter.net, the website of the Global Citizen Center, and let's talk about working toward this goal.

Best wishes,
Steve

Originally Posted by sclark

To me, the task of current day revolutionaries is to promote and popularize this split (the most obvious current example is the split between European financial interests and the energy-based Bush administration). I propose doing this by pressing the demand that the global financial services industry impose a self-tax on all electronic commercial transactions to make those ample funds available to develop the global service economy through NGO-corporate partnerships under the advice and consent of a new, global citizens authority.

I'm mostly with you. I agree that in any given S&H crisis, a new group of individuals making money in a new way is generally striving to gain enough political power to make their new approach work better, or at least become more profitable. With automation and resource limitations, smaller portions of today's population are required in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, which should lead to a much larger service sector. I agree population and resource issues will ultimately shape our culture, but right now the trend towards service societies seems more driven by technological and profit forces than environmental.

I'm not yet seeing a class consciousness among the service crowd, a sense of solidarity that forces revolution and upheaval. While I appreciate Marx's and his heirs early identification of issues, I am doubtful of his solutions, and thus doubtful that a Marxist perspective will be the most advantageous. I'm with you in a lot of ways, but I'm dubious about going down the class struggle / revolutionary path. A new language addressing many of the same issues with different key words might be prudent in terms of creating effective propaganda.

There is simply no divide of privilege and suffering between the Industrialists and Service 'classes' that is pulling the world towards that particular class based revolution. If one is looking for privilege v suffering, the primary divide remains between the democratic-industrial Second Wave First World, and the remnants of the autocratic-agricultural First Wave Third World. The Second Wave First World developed countries have sufficient wealth that the transition to a Third Wave service economy seems plausible, and is well underway. The First Wave Third World is in trouble.

While I agree that globalism, environmentalism, economic inequities and other issues relevant to the creation of a global Third Wave culture are going to be addressed during this crisis, it will be hard to step into a Third Wave pattern while the First Wave / Second Wave issues are still being actively contested. We have First Wave cultures likely to access Third Wave weapons of mass destruction. As usual in any given S&H crisis, the privileged groups feel no obligation to relieve inequities and suffering. In prior crises, underlying causes were not addressed by the privileged until Richmond and Berlin are burned out hulks. As technology advances, so does the death count, and the number of burned out acres. Until some smoky dawn, and beyond, the use of military force to maintain the status quo was the plan, is the plan, will be the plan. The elites are more concerned with maintaining privilege and wealth, thus the impoverished have no alternative to violence.

That's the divide I fear. There's where the revolution is apt to occur. If previous S&H crises are the guide, it is the privileged faction clinging to the past that has to yield to the new realities. Things will have to get a lot worse, though, before the need for change will be embraced.

:lol: :lol: :lol: Just love this forum, as I've said before! :lol: :lol: :lol:

The above comment from Sclark the former Communist about Marxism being a science just made my day!

Prithee, which mathematical formulas did Marx use to prove his hypotheses? Which equation is always 100% correct in predicting the outcome of a Marxist phenomenon?

To quote Al Pacino:
Hoo-ha! 8)

Originally Posted by Cato

:lol: :lol: :lol: Just love this forum, as I've said before! :lol: :lol: :lol:

The above comment from Sclark the former Communist about Marxism being a science just made my day!

Prithee, which mathematical formulas did Marx use to prove his hypotheses? Which equation is always 100% correct in predicting the outcome of a Marxist phenomenon?

To quote Al Pacino:
Hoo-ha! 8)

Human culture is a chaotic system, under the mathematical definition which spawned chaos theory. We have a large number of similar units (people) interacting with one another. Such systems are apt to generate several conflicting and complex patterns. Each pattern might view the system under study from a different perspective. Each looks for different markers in seeking patterns.

Thus, I can honor S&H's four score and seven year cycles, Toffler's waves of civilization, Marx's class struggles, Amy Chua's market dominant minorities, Huntington's civilizations, and assorted military theorists while still honoring ancient religious traditions and Enlightenment political theories.

All these systems reveal truths, but in not examining or integrating the other systems, none of them is adequate as a description of the human condition as a whole. In principle, if we could create a set of equations describing how a single human being behaves, we could create a computer model showing how a large system of billions of humans might interact. Problem is, the butterfly effect. A slight tweak in the model would predict a vastly different future. Even this assumes that all people are essentially identical, which is patently absurd, which creates an awful lot of butterflies in the simulation. In short, while Asimov's Foundation Trilogy predicted a causal science able to foresee human history a thousand years into the future, Asimov wrote before Chaos Theory, and that classic piece of fiction is apt to remain fiction. Marx too wrote before Chaos Theory.

This doesn't mean there are not patterns that might be observed and used to make educated short term guesses. Marx identified real problems which are still unsolved. Unfortunately, he advocated First Wave solutions. Rather than strengthen Second Wave feedback systems such as labor unions and elective democracy, Marx's heirs took a step backward into First Wave autocratic solutions. They tried to replace a poorly working democratic government and early prototype labor unions with autocratic absolute power. It didn't work. The major lesson of the Cold War is that feedback based bottom up cultures work better than top down authoritarian cultures. My gut feeling is that a major direction in the next crisis is to improve and strengthen the bottom up feedback features of Second Wave cultures.

Marx also got wrapped up in a 19th Century dream that government was unnecessary, that man would revert to a natural state of peaceful anarchy if only oppressive government would go away. Thoreau is another writer of the period who shared this delusion. Few would believe in peaceful anarchy anymore. Thus, while I respect Marx for identifying real flaws in the human condition, one must seriously question his model of human behavior, and doubt the resulting predictions.

This does not mean class analysis is no longer relevant. Still, if one wants to understand modern class issues, I would recommend Amy Chua rather than Marx. Class in Marx's time centered on the tension between labor and management. Chua's model shows class issues today also involve ethnic, racial, religious and political issues. Western Big Media can and has been presenting foreign instabilities as ethnic or religious, without addressing the underlying economic and political causes Marx focused on. Chua brings Marx back in, showing how the ethnic and economic elements interact. If one wants to find a pattern in how many trouble spots all over the world are bubbling up in distinctly different ways, one needs a broader perspective, and I'd recommend Chua's. In short, democracy favors the ethnic majority. Capitalism favors the elite ruling class with the bulk of the money, which is often an ethnic/religious minority. Capitalism and Democracy are not an easy answer, not without serious thought as to how each must limit the excesses of the other.

Somolia is not Norhern Ireland, which is not Palistine, which is not Rwanda, which is not Iraq. In each location, the market dominant minority was part of a different flavor of tension. If one remains happily ignorant of the market dominant minority aspect of modern class struggles, one is not understanding the problem. One is apt to follow the coverage of big media, which will slant reporting to favor the ethnic group most likely to boost ratings. This in turn slants how politicians handle the problem.

But if I honor Chua, this is not to say I'll ignore Marx, Jefferson, Huntington, Toffler, Strauss or Howe. We'll be far better off integrating multiple perspectives than making fun of all perspectives but one's own. Human behavior is complex. Current attempts to understand it are more intuitive than mathematical. This does not mean that scientific observation, objectivity and rationality are irrelevant. I can communicate and seriously discuss issues with Sclark, even if we differ. Argument by laughing smilie icons certainly isn't scientific. Show me some beef.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

But if I honor Chua, this is not to say I'll ignore Marx, Jefferson, Huntington, Toffler, Strauss or Howe. We'll be far better off integrating multiple perspectives than making fun of all perspectives but one's own. Human behavior is complex. Current attempts to understand it are more intuitive than mathematical. This does not mean that scientific observation, objectivity and rationality are irrelevant. I can communicate and seriously discuss issues with Sclark, even if we differ. Argument by laughing smilie icons certainly isn't scientific. Show me some beef.

Mooo!

Read me carefully, me bucko! I was quibbling with the word "science", which has nothing to do with History or Politics, despite the misnomers "Political Science" and "Social Sciences".

Can History - should History - ape the scientific method as much as it can?
Sure! But History will remain a description of human behavior, where you can make some broad generalizations about usual behavior - most people will bend over to pick up a $10 bill, but there will be some who will not - but these are never going to be mathematical or reproducible a la the scientific method.

:lol: :lol: :lol: And I LOVE these things! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Do you really see somewhere on the horizon any hint of any type of solidarity among the service class crowd that would indicate any type of upheaval similar to that the industrial workers nurtured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which led to expanded unionism? The theories of the book do indicate a revival of unionism as we approach the 4T.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Do you really see somewhere on the horizon any hint of any type of solidarity among the service class crowd that would indicate any type of upheaval similar to that the industrial workers nurtured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which led to expanded unionism? The theories of the book do indicate a revival of unionism as we approach the 4T.

I didn't think unions were that important, until my last job. (Specifically, when our benefits were slashed on September 7th, 2001.) This one is closed shop and it's well worth it, but I've had to stay on my toes for different things.

Originally Posted by sclark

Sean (responding to your 11/25 question) . . .

Steve,

Thank you for your time in answering my question. I want to let you know I am still absorbing it (and the posts that followed).

Here's something that might give us a clue. Starting from after the Civil War Anomaly mucked things up, add the ages of the three leading generations (we don't know when the 4T children start being born for the Millennial Crisis), and do the same for 2001.
WW1+Prohibition
Progressives=65
Missionaries=48
Lost=25
Total=138
Great Depression+WW2
Missionaries=69
Lost=46
G.I.s=28
Total=143
American High
Lost=63
G.I.s=45
Silent=21
Total=129
Consciousness Revolution
G.I.s=63
Silent=39
Boomers=21
Total=123
Culture Wars
Silent=59
Boomers=41
13ers=23
Total=123
Millennial Crisis
Boomers=61?
13ers=43?
Millennials=22?
Total=117?
Like so much else concerning 9-11, you can make a case both ways with this. The totals are slowly dropping (the equivalent for the Protestant Reformation would be 174!) so maybe 117 would work. On the other hand, 2003 would give 123, and maybe the total would even go up a bit, as it did between the first two listed, so perhaps a couple years later still would work. But if I were looking at this in 2000, 2001 or 2002 would seem a better choice to me...9-11 was in late 2001.

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Do you really see somewhere on the horizon any hint of any type of solidarity among the service class crowd that would indicate any type of upheaval similar to that the industrial workers nurtured in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which led to expanded unionism? The theories of the book do indicate a revival of unionism as we approach the 4T.

Hmmm... that's an interesting question/observation to ponder. I've been working my way through Kenndey's Freedom From Fear, about half finished now, and I was particularly struck the other day by the discussions about unions and their expereiences in the middle of the Depression. I think it's an interesting phenomenon that multiple attempts were made to grow unions in the Teens/20s, yet most people were very suspicious of them and the organizers had a hard time. By the mid-30s, a new generation was entering the workplace, people had nothing left to lose, and much to gain; the growth of unions and their power to confront industry was exponentially greater. Now I'm curious: is the reason the GIs were so good at forming teams and working together for the greater good in the 40s a result of the practice they got in the unionizing experiences of the 30s? Or was the reason that unions got such a boost in the 30s a product of GI predisposition toward group action in the face of crisis? I'm having a hard time putting the concept into words, so I hope my meaning is coming across.